We wake up to rainy skies and fog… Not what we had hoped for and the beautiful mountains that were visible last night are now all covered in clouds. Our Polish friends get going early while we are still debating what to do.
Back in Truskavets we had booked an appartment for the weekend through AirBnB. We had planned to spend another day here in the Tatra mountains before heading up to Krakow on Saturday and then further to Auschwitz on Monday. We decide to check if the appartment would be available today already. While we wait for the answer from the owners, it starts drizzling. A few minutes later we get confirmation that we are welcome tonight so we start packing as fast as we can. Still, by the time we are ready to go, the drizzle has become full on rain and we are soaked. The KLIM suits do what we paid them for, but water is just flowing down our necks and up our sleeves. Not a nice feeling to put on a helmet when your hair is wet, or wriggling wet hands into your gloves. And it is cold up here!
So we get going, wet or not, heated grips on full whack!
By lunchtime we reach Wieliczka. We dive into the first place we come across that looks warm and dry. The rain has eased of but we are still wet and cold. One hot soup later we feel a lot better and head for the salt mines. They are not hard to find as it is the main reason the city is on the map. We park the bikes and we can even leave our helmets in the office to dry! Nice!
We arrive just in time for the 1PM guided tour. I go to buy the tickets and when I ask the lady at the counter how long it will take, she lets me know it’s about 3 hours. Seriously?!? Ok, you get value for money but we had planned to be in Krakow around 4PM so we make a quick telephone call to our hosts for the night before we head underground.
The tour starts with stairs, lots of stairs! The tour takes us from 64m deep down to 135m with stops at different places so we get a good view on the grandeur of the place and the harsh conditions in which the miners had to work.
Our guides tells us stories of legends related to the place and the history of the site.
The tour ends in the bigest and most impressive of the numerous chapels underground.
And then it goes up again…
When we get out, it’s still cloudy but dry. And so are we thanks to the warm dry air inside the mine.
We arrive exactly at 5PM at the appartment in Krakow. It’s our first AirBnB experience and we are just stunned! The owner is there to greet us. We park the bikes in the secure underground parking lot, he quickly shows us where everything is and then we have the place to ourselves. The appartment is just increadible!
We have a big living room.
There is a fully equipped kitchen! Including dishwasher and a fridge that is already cold!
2 bathrooms and a washing machine which we put to good use immediately.
And a huge bedroom in the eaves with one of the best matrasses I ever slept on.
We quickly head down to the supermarket for some dinner and we spend the rest of the evening on the couch enjoying the fast internet and sorting through the images.
